please don't let this go
by i set my sims on fire
Summary: Promise me you won't forget me - Teddy, Lily, and five moments that made them.


**Warning; bad language, cliches, etc etc etc**

please don't let this go

**i; innocence**

Lily is five. Teddy is seventeen. It's a Tuesday in August, the sky is blue, the grass is green, sunlight streams down onto the colourful flowers outside of the Potter's house. Lily is a little kid; one slightly chubby hand extended to reach for Teddy's, vibrant red hair plaited into two braids, and a wearing a flowery dress.

Teddy is her older brother, at this point.

Teddy's making her laugh as he holds her hand and she wipes away a few little-girl tears that have escaped from her eyelids. She fell over, dancing across the stone path, happy to see Teddy again. He switches his hair from blue to red in a burst of rainbow colours, and then he pulls faces until he looks like a clown or something.

Lily is his little sister, in this moment, and pretty soon the crying has turned into a stream of giggles and she has the sunshine on her face.

Teddy is going back to Hogwarts in a week, and he likes to think he'll spend most of his free time getting his school work together and pissing around with his friends, because he's seventeen and he's got better things to do than play with a little girl who isn't even his sister.

But Lily is a little fierce and she's persistent, and so he'll probably be coming round for dinner tomorrow. And the day after that, and then the day after that.

Lily collapses onto the grass, sighing, contended.

'You're my best friend, Teddy,' she says, and Teddy feels his lips curl up at the corners as he sits down beside her.

'You're my best friend, too, Lil.'

She bites her lip. 'Promise you won't forget me?'

'How could I?' he says, and then he reaches for her, holding her from running away with one hand and tickling her mercilessly until she screams and laughter spills out of her mouth.

**ii; growing up**

Lily is eleven today. Teddy is twenty-two.

Teddy finds her in the tree house at the bottom of her garden.

Lily is hugging her knees, red hair tumbling down her back and over her shoulders. Her face is hidden in her jeans, and Teddy has to question what's wrong with her.

He got a phone-call from Harry and Ginny and apparently she got her Hogwarts letter along with her birthday presents, plastered a smile onto her face and has been hiding in her tree house ever since. And he's Teddy and he's her big brother, isn't he? Isn't he? Except he's not around so much these days, he's too busy juggling work and his girlfriend because she's moving in this week and everything's so hectic but Harry begged.

And, well, Teddy had to come round and drop off her birthday card sometime, didn't he?

'Happy birthday Lil,' he says, upon entrance. She looks up and he sees that there are no tears staining her pale cheeks. Lily rarely cries. And maybe she's not upset, but then her eyes look so sad and he extends his arms.

She smiles, standing up and giving him a hug, and he bangs his head on the roof as he pulls away.

'Shit!' he says, rubbing his head, and then he looks down and sees Lily with her fawn eyes.

'Sorry, don't repeat that. Or tell your dad,' Teddy says, smiling awkwardly.

'James swears all the time, don't worry,' Lily shrugs.

'So what's wrong?' Teddy asks, sitting himself down. Lily joins him and she shrugs again.

'Dunno,' she says flatly.

'Of course you know. Come on, Lil, you can tell me anything.'

Lily hesitates. 'I'm scared,' she admits.

'Lily Luna Potter, scared?' Teddy fakes surprise. 'Now I've seen everything.'

'Shut up,' she giggles. 'I'm just- I'm going to this new school and like, I won't no anyone but family, and James and Al say you get loads of attention for being like, Harry Potter's kid and James wouldn't talk to Al for _ages_ after he got put in Slytherin and what if I do too and-'

'Lily, slow down,' Teddy says. 'You'll be fine. Vic and me, when we started- we got loads of attention, you know, having war heroes for parents and all that. But you get used to it. James and Al will look out for you. House rivalries aren't so bad anymore; James just forgets what century he's from and listens to your Uncle Ron talk about Slytherins too much. You'll be fine, okay?'

Lily doesn't look like it's fine. She bites her lip anxiously, but she nods.

'Yeah, whatever. Okay. Thanks, Ted.'

Teddy smiles at her.

'I have to go now, Lil, me and Vic are looking for a flat-' irritation crosses her face, if only for a second. 'But I'll see you soon, okay?'

'Yeah, right,' Lily says, suddenly sounding bored and sullen. She crosses her arms. 'See you, Ted. Bye.'

'Happy birthday.'

'Thanks.'

He climbs down the rickety ladder leading up to the tree house and sighs when he reaches the bottom.

**iii; rebellion**

Lily is sixteen. Teddy is twenty-seven.

In the past five years, he's barely seen her, and so he is slightly taken aback when she shows up an hour past her curfew at her parents' house, smelling of smoke and wearing a skirt much too short for the cold of the December skies.

'Lily Potter, where have you _been_?' Ginny snaps. James doesn't look up from his muggle mobile phone, slumped in his seat at he dinner table, and Albus is leaning on his elbow, making no means of conversation. Harry has cut the awkward small talk and is glancing anxiously over to their front door, where his angry wife stands with his sullen daughter, and Teddy pulls the skin off of his fingers underneath the table.

Lily shrugs. 'Out,' she responds. She pulls off her leather jacket, dumping it carelessly on the floor next to everyone's shoes. Her high-heeled boots stay on her feet, snapping against the hard wood floor as she walks.

'Hi,' she says simply as she slumps into a chair, glancing around the table, bored. Teddy gives her a half-smile which she doesn't return.

'Come back from sleeping around half of London?' Al sneers, his arms folded.

Lily smiles at him sweetly. 'I'm surprised you made an appearance, Albus, thought you'd be busy with your boyfriend down Malfoy Manor. Haven't had a lovers' tiff, have you?'

Harry looks a little startled underneath his glasses, but James doesn't raise an eyebrow. Teddy gets the feeling this is an argument the Potter siblings have regularly, and decides it's more playful than anything.

Al's pale face goes a little red, and he glares at his sister, who smirks in return and sticks out a little pink tongue.

'He's not my boyfriend,' he hisses.

Lily looks like she's about to retort, but then Ginny's rushing in with plates full of food. She places them in the middle of the table before glaring at her daughter.

'I'm afraid the food might be a little burned. It would've been perfect an hour or so ago, but then Lily here decided to turn up late- And it's not as if I have my mother's skill at cooking, so-'

'Damn right,' James mutters under her breath. Lily grins and Albus stifles a laugh. Ginny doesn't hear, and Harry shuffles awkwardly in his chair, as if he's pretending he didn't. Teddy glances at them, the three Potter siblings who were once his brothers and sister- and finds he barely recognizes the three children in front of him.

He's heard gossip, of course he has, from various magazines that Victoire leaves dotted around their flat, and from the edges of tables when he attends the odd family meal- he knows that James is dating a new model every few weeks, drinking perhaps a little too much; that Albus came out as gay and is in love with his best friend, Scorpius Malfoy if the rumours are correct; and of course, Lily, who he doesn't care to think about at the best of times.

Because when he turns up at the Potters' front door, he's got this naive expectation of a little girl with plaited red hair and cheeks glowing from laughing. But instead he meets the eyes of a self-destructive young woman who represents everything the Lily he was expecting is not.

Ginny piles food onto his plate, and from across the table, Lily Luna smirks at him. It's been years since he's seen her, he realises, and he has no idea who she is anymore.

He wishes he'd made more of an effort. He and Vic were on the rocks for a bit; they fought, they broke up, and then she'd break down into tears and they'd get back together. Teddy didn't want to see her family during that time, didn't want to see them with hostile frowns because Vic could let slip lies, sometimes, and he couldn't deal with that.

And then- he got lost in his work and paying rent and catching up on a hundred sleepless nights, and anything outside his routine was forgotten about.

Including Lily.

**iv; mistakes**

Lily is nineteen. Teddy is thirty.

He feels so old next to her. Especially when he catches sight of himself in the mirror- sunken rings around his eyes from the many sleepless nights, and fuck, are those wrinkles he sees? He hopes not. His hair is still blue, he still holds a smile on his face, but he doesn't feel like Teddy anymore and it's kind of weird.

And then he sees Lily- and well, shit, Lily is beautiful.

He can see her now, and it's her nineteenth birthday party, being celebrated six days after the actual date because Lily had a killer hangover from a night out with her friends and her parents wanted her to see her family.

From what Teddy hears, Lily didn't agree.

But now they're celebrating in the Burrow, and Teddy finds himself drinking perhaps a little too much too drown at the reminder that- shit, he's growing old whilst Lily's still growing up. He can see her now, laughing with her brother and Scorpius with a glass in her hand. Her long red hair cascades down her back, almost reaching her waist and it seems like her hazel eyes are sparkling.

Teddy looks around, awkwardly, feeling more detached than ever because Victoire's away with work and he doesn't have a hand to hold, nothing to tie him to this family and he feels as if he's pulled himself away just an inch too far for him to really fit in here.

He doesn't really know what happened.

He knocks back a couple more drinks until there is music playing, and suddenly Lily is dancing with him, and she doesn't look like a little girl anymore. He isn't sure when that started, when he stopped seeing her as a little sister. Probably when she was sixteen and the all the bitterness started, when she wore too tight skirts and smelled of stranger's aftershave. Maybe on her eighteenth when he saw her lip locked with some ex-boyfriend, dancing wildly beneath the throbbing baseline in a too short dress that showed off too much.

The lights are dimmer, now. Teddy looks around. Albus is dancing with Scorpius; James with his latest girlfriend, Lucy with Lorcan and Rose with her boyfriend and the list goes on. And then Lily takes hold of his hand, and she's dragging him out of the room, up the stairs, and then her lips are on his and Teddy isn't sure what's happening because he has a long-term girlfriend who keeps dropping hints about marriage, and she's his godfather's daughter and eleven years too young, isn't she- but Teddy has had a little too much to drink and so he kisses her back desperately.

And when he wakes up, Lily is on Victoire's side of the bed, sleeping soundly, naked beneath Victoire's cream duvet and guilt hits him like a bullet through the head.

He shakes her urgently.

'Lily, wake up,' he hisses, and she opens her eyes and when she sees him, topless and leaning over her, she smirks.

'Morning,' she whispers, sitting up to kiss him on the lips.

He pulls away and doesn't miss the hurt that flickers through her eyes.

'Lily- what happened-'

'Don't tell me you don't remember,' she says, rolling her eyes. 'Me and you. Naked. In your bedroom. Put two and two together, Teddy.'

Teddy leaps off of the bed, away from her. 'It shouldn't have happened,' he tells her, shaking. 'It was a mistake, Lily. Yeah?'

'It wasn't like that!' Lily protests. 'Not for me.'

'We were drunk, Lil- I was so fucking wasted- I didn't know what I was doing-'

'Didn't you?' Lily glares at him. Her eyes glint dangerously. 'Cause, see Teddy, you said some pretty interesting stuff to me, last night. Things like 'I love you', and all that. Don't tell me you didn't mean that.'

Teddy feels like his face is on fire. It comes rushing back. Pressing kisses to the white skin of Lily's neck, murmuring words into her soft red hair-

'No, I didn't,' he lies, shaking his head. And he's not sure what he's lying about- wanting her, or loving her, or regretting every inch of her. 'I don't love you, Lily. Not like that.'

'I've seen the way you look at me!' Lily argues. 'Don't tell me it means nothing...'

'It means nothing.'

'I don't believe you.'

'Lily- I was _drunk_- I don't love you, I'm with Victoire- I'm going to propose to her-'

Lily's eyes flash with anger. 'Fuck you, Teddy. Why do you keep doing this to me? Why do you always put her first?'

'Because she's my girlfriend and- and I love her!'

'Then why don't I fucking believe you? You don't love her, Ted, you love me. You said you loved me,' Lily's voice quietens, quivering a little. 'You said.'

'I said a lot last night, Lily. I didn't mean it. I was really drunk. I'm so sorry-'

'Sorry for what? Fucking me? Ditching me for Victoire?' her voice rises again and she's shouting. 'Fucking me over when you promised you'd always be there? Leaving me? Forgetting about me?'

'When did I forget about you?'

'When you promised you'd visit, time and time again. Then blow me- us- off because _Vic's got a migraine_, or _Vic's got a promotion and we're going for a meal_, or _Vic and I are looking for a new flat_. All those fucking times, Teddy.'

'Lily-'

'I love you, Teddy. I love you. And you forgot me. You left me. How do you think that makes me feel?'

'I'm sorry, but-'

'You know what, fuck you. I hoped this would make you see. If me and you- if we actually, you know, crossed the line. I hoped you'd see.'

'You did this on purpose?' Teddy gapes at her. His eyes narrow and his voice goes quiet. 'You waited until I was pissed? You made a move on me knowing I was too drunk to know what I was doing?'

'You weren't _that_ drunk, Ted. You knew full well what you were fucking doing-'

'You _wanted_ this to happen?' he yells. 'You know I'm with Victoire, Lily, why would you-'

'I've told you why!' she snaps. 'All you had to do was listen!'

'Lily Luna, you are so damned _selfish_,' Teddy's voice quakes. 'You'd do this to your own cousin? Sleep with her boyfriend? You're fucked up, Lily. Fucked up and selfish.'

Lily stares at him. Her lip quivers.

She gets out of his bed, turning around so that he's faced with her bare back. She pulls on her underwear and dress without saying a word. And then she turns around. Teddy is breathing heavily, his fists clenched. He notices her eyes are welling with tears, and he opens his mouth to say something- anything- to make those tears stop.

But it's too late because she's gone.

**v; realisation**

Lily is twenty-one. Teddy is thirty-two.

He has long since broken up with Victoire. He told her about Lily, and she cried and she left and he didn't follow her.

Victoire didn't mean for everyone to find out. In the end, she was too sweet to bring them both down with the truth. But she told Dominique and Dominique told the rest of the family, shaming Lily at a family dinner.

Teddy wonders how Lily is as she sits down at the dinner table. Wonders if she's grown out of the self-destruction, the alcohol, the sex. It seems her brothers might have, because James got married last year and Al and Scorpius have been going steady for almost five years.

And Teddy's happy for them, really. He's happy for Victoire and her new boyfriend. She was the one who invited him tonight, to a meal with Nana Molly, just the grandchildren and their nana who's been lonely since her husband died.

He wasn't going to go, but Vic wrote and said she'd moved on and she wanted them to stay friends because they'd been close all their lives and please could he come, promising everybody had forgotten about him and Lily and their 'thing'.

But she lied because they hadn't forgotten, and when he first entered the Burrow he felt like he was met by stares of hostility from Dominique and Louis as well as Al and James, after all, he messed around their baby sister (eleven years too young), remember?

It died down, though, and soon everyone was laughing with him and telling him what he'd missed but he felt empty.

Lily's avoided his gaze all evening, hiding behind a curtain of hair and when Teddy looks in her direction he pictures her hands wrapped around his neck when she kissed him the way she kissed him, and he wonders if she was right, just maybe.

He spends a lot of time wondering about Lily, these days.

But she hasn't got a boyfriend and for some reason he's quite happy about that.

And when the evening is over, he finds himself cornering Lily as the cousins begin to disappear.

'Hey,' he says. 'I was wondering- could you- could we talk?'

She looks at him skeptically, but doesn't refuse and so they end up in his flat. He hopes she doesn't notice the empty coffee mugs dumped all over the place, or the damp on his ceiling, the dirty clothes strewn over the floor.

'Sorry for the mess,' he says hastily.

Lily shrugs. 'Doesn't bother me. I wasn't expecting much.'

Teddy nods. 'Okay.'

He sits down on one of his old sofas. A checkered blanket has been thrown over it. Lily perches next to him. He can tell from her body language, the way she is sitting up straight and ripping skin from her fingernails, that she is nervous.

'Look,' she begins. 'I'm sorry. About you and Vic, I mean. I'm sorry. I had no right.'

There is a short silence before Teddy sighs heavily. 'We weren't going to work,' he tells her. 'I should've realised that long before you did. You just- sped up the process.'

'I shouldn't have done what I did though,' Lily protests. 'I mean, I didn't get you drunk so I could- you know- have sex with you. But when I saw that you were pissed- I couldn't stop myself.'

'Lily, it's okay,' Teddy gives her a half-smile. 'It wasn't your fault. It was half me, too. I shouldn't have blamed you.' He takes a deep breath. 'You were right. I knew exactly what I was doing. I could've stopped myself.'

'But you didn't,' Lily points out. 'Why didn't you?'

Teddy takes a deep breath. 'You were right. About me. About you. And it took me a messy break up, a hell of a lot of alcohol and two years to realise it. But you were right. And I'm sorry it took so long for me to say that.'

Lily blinks. 'I was right?'

'About me,' he says awkwardly, his cheeks going a little red. 'Loving you. I meant everything I said. On the night, I mean,' he adds hastily. 'Not the morning after. I didn't mean a word of that.'

'You really mean that?' Lily stares at him.

'Uh,' he rubs his neck. 'Yeah.'

Lily smiles at him- really smiles at him. She leans forward, and closes the distance. This kiss is different to the others. Her lips aren't desperate against his, this is soft, tender, loving.

She pulls away.

She smiles at him.

Teddy still doesn't know who Lily is, not really. He knows the little girl with plaited hair and high-pitched giggle, and he also knows the bitter teenager with empty eyes and an emptier heart. He doesn't know this Lily, this new Lily with the quieter voice and the prettier face. But he knows that loves her.

And that's enough.

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